ninth and concluding chapter, and presents a condensed but perspicuous view of Literature, Science, and the useful Arts, during that period. No circumstance is so prominent on the first survey of society during the early part of this period, as the depth of ignorance in which it was immersed, and the consequent moral and social evils experienced in those ages. The causes assigned for this ignorance, are the neglect of heathen literature, the torrent of irrationa! superstitions, and the progress of ascetic enthusiasm, before the subversion of the Roman Empire; and subsequent to that event, the corruption of the Latin Language, the formation of new Languages, the general ignorance of the dark ages, and the scarcity of books. Religion alone, as it was modified by the papal power during that period, contributed to preserve a few sparks of antient learning; and had it not been for the papal supremacy, the monastic institutions, and the use of a Latin Liturgy, it is not improbable that the Latin Language would have been entirely lost. I. A continual intercourse was kept up in consequence of the first, between Rome and the several nations of Europe; her laws were received by the bishops, her legates presided in councils; so that a common language was as necessary in the church as it is at present in the diplomatic relations of kingdoms. II. Throughout the whole course of the middle ages, there was no learning, and very little regularity of manners, among the parochial clergy. Almost every distinguished man was either the member of a chapter or of a convent. The monasteries were subjected to strict rules of discipline, and held out, at the worst, more opportunities for study than the secular clergy possessed, and fewer for worldly dissipations. But their most important service was as secure repositories for books. All our manuscripts have been preserved in this manner, and could hardly have descended to us by any other chanuel; ́at least, there were intervals, when I do not conceive that any royal or private libraries existed. III. Monasteries, however, would probably have contributed very little towards the preservation of learning if the Scriptures and the liturgy had been trauslated out of Latin when that language ceased to be intelligent. Every rational principle of religious worship called for such a change; but it would have been made at the expense of posterity. One might presume, if such refined conjectures were consistent with historical caution, that the more learned and sagacious ecclesiastics of those times, deploring the gra dual corruption of the Latiu tongue, and the danger of its absolute extinction, were induced to maintain it as a sacred language, and the depositary, as it were, of that truth and that science which would be lost in the barbarous dialects of the vulgar. But a simpler explanation is found in the radical dislike of innovation which is natural to an established clergy. Nor did they want as good pretexts, on the ground of convenience, as are commonly alledged by the opponents of reform, They were habituated to the Latin words of the church-service, which had become, by this association, the readiest instruments of devotion, and with the majesty of which the Romance jargon could bear no comparison. Their musical chants were adapted to these sounds, and their hymns depended, for metrical effect, on the marked accents and powerful rhymes which the Latin language affords. The vulgate Latin of the Bible was still more venerable. It was like a copy of a lost original: and a copy attested by one of the most eminent fathers, and by the general consent of the church. These are certainly no adequate excuses for keeping the people in ignorance; and the gross corruption of the middle ages is in a great degree assignable to this policy. But learning, and consequently religion, have eventually derived from it the utmost advantage. In the shadows of this universal ignorance, a thousand superstitions were propagated and nourished. While religion lost almost every quality that renders it conducive to the benefit of society, the controul of human law was still less efficacious. Legislature and judicial edicts became a dead letter, and judicial perjury was a common and universal characteristic of the times now under consideration. The favourite diversions of the Mid dle Ages, in the intervals ot war, were those of hunting and hawking. The former seems to have been enjoyed in moderation by the Greeks and Romans. With the northern invaders, however, it was rather a predominant appetite than an amusement; it was their pride and their ornament, the theme of their songs, the object of their laws, and the business of their lives. Falconry, unknown as a di the natural pastures were improved, and new kinds of fodder for cattle discovered, it was impossible to maintain the summer stock during the cold season. Hence a portion of it was regularly slaughtered and salted for winter provision. We may sup pose, that when no alternative was offered but these salted meats, even the leanest venison was devoured with relish. There was somewhat more excuse therefore for the severity with which the lords of forests and manors preserved the beasts of version to the ancients, became from the fourth century an equally delightful occu pation. From the Salic and other barba rous codes of the fifth century to the close | of the period under our review, every age would furnish testimony to the ruling pas sion for these two species of chase, or, as they were sometimes called, the mysteries of woods and rivers. A knight seldom stirred from his house without a falcon on his wrist or a greyhound that followed him. Thus are Harold and his attendants represented, in the famous tapestry of Bayeux.chase, than if they had been considered And in the monuments of those who died any where but on the field of battle, it is usual to find the greyhound lying at their feet, or the bird upon their wrists Nor are the tombs of ladies without their fal con; for this diversion, being of less dan ger and fatigue than the chase, was shared by the delicate sex. as merely objects of sport. The laws relating to preservation of game were in every country uncommonly rigorous. They formed in England that odious system of forest-laws, which distinguished the ty ranny of our Norman kings. Capital punishment for killing a stag or wild boar was frequent, and perhaps warranted by French code was less severe, but even Henry IV. enacted the pain of death against the repeated offence of chasing deer in the royal forests. The privilege of hunting was reserved to the nobility till the reign of Louis IX. who extended it in some degree to persons of lower birth. It was impossible to repress the eager-law, until the charter of John. The ness with which the clergy, especially after the barbarians were tempted by rich bishopricks to take upon them the sacred functions, rushed into these secular amusements. Prohibitions of councils, however frequently repeated, produced little effect. In some instances, a particular monastery obtained a dispensation. Thus that of St. Denis, in 774, represented to Charlemagne that the flesh of hunted animals was salutary for sick monks, and that their skins would serve to bind the book in the library. Reasons equally cogent, we may presume, could not be wanting in every other case. As the bishops and abbots were perfectly feudal lords, and often did not scruple to lead their vassals into the field, it was not to be expected that they should debar themselves of au innocent pastime. It was hardly such indeed, when practised at the expense of others. Alexander III., by a letter to the clergy of Berkshire, dispenses with their keeping the archdeacon in dogs and hawks during his visitation. This season gave jovial ecclesiastics an opportunity of trying different countries. An archbishop of York, in 1321, seems to have carried a train of two hundred persons who were maintained at the expense of the abbeys on his road, and to have hunted with a pack of hounds from parish to parish. The third council of Lateran, in 1180, had probibited this amusement on such journies, and restricted bishops to a train of forty or fifty horses, Though hunting had ceased to be a necessary means of procuring food, it was a very convenient resource on which the wholesomeness and comfort, as well as luxury, of the table depended. Before This excessive passion for the sports of the field produced those evils which are apt to result from it; a strenuous idleness, which disdained all useful occupations, and an oppressive spirit towards the pea santry. The devastation committed under the pretence of destroying wild animals, which had been already protected in their depredations, is noticed in serious authors, and has also been the topic of popular ballads. What effect this must have had on agriculture, it is easy to conjecture The levelling of forests, the draining of morasses, and the extirpation of mischievous animals which inhabit them, are the first objects of man's labour in reclaiming the earth to his use; and these were forbidden by a landed aristocracy, whose controul over the progress of agricultural improvement was unlimited, and who had not yet learned to sacrifice their pleasures to their avarice. These habits of the rich, and the miserable servitude of those who cultivated the land, rendered its fertility unavailing. Consequently agriculture was in a deplorable state. Manufactures beyond the demand for domestic consumption, and the supply of the necessities of an adjacent district, were unknown; and there was little encouragement either for internal traffic er foreign commerce, in consequence of the insecurity of persons and of noveable wealth, the difficulty of accumulating it, the ignorance of mutual wants, the peril of robbery in conveying it, and the certainty of extortion. Towards the close of the eleventh cen tury this wretched state of things began to change for the better; and between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, the wealth, agriculture, manners, and learning of Europe experienced progressive improvement. The condition of the lower classes was ameliorated; a more regular administration of justice, ac cording to fixed laws, took place, and the police was more effectual. The purity of morals, which characterised the members of various communities of Sectaries, who seceded from the Romish communion, also bad a beneficial effect on society; but, in our author's opinion the best school of moral discipline, which the Middle Ages afforded, was the institution of chivalry, which cherished with peculiar care the spirit of liberty, of religion, and especially of honour. Mr. Hallam's account of the institution of chivalry, and his estimate of the benefits and evils resulting from it, is highly interesting, but does not admit of abridgement. Dante or Durante Alighieri was born in 1265, of a respectable family in Flo rence. Attached to the Guelf party, which had then obtained a final ascendency over its rival, he might justly promise himself the natural reward of talents and the esteem of his compatriots. But, under a free government,-public trust the Guelfs unhappily were split into two factions, the Bianchi and the Neri, with the former of whom, ard, as it proved, the unsuccessful side, Dante was connected. In 1800, he filled the office of one of the Priori, or chief magistrates at Florence; and having manifested in this, as was al ledged, some partiality towards the Bianagainst him about two years afterwards, chi, a sentence of proscription passed when it became the turn of the opposite faction to triumph. Banished from his country, and baffled in several efforts of his friends to restore their fortunes, he had no resource but at the courts of the Scalas at Verona, and other Italian princes, attaching himself in adversity to the Imperial interests, and, tasting, in his own language, the bitterness of another's bread. In this state of exile he finished, if he did not commence, his great poem, the Di vine Comedy; a representation of the three kingdoms of futurity, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, divided into one hundred cantos, and containing about 14,000 lines. He died at Ravenna in 1321. It only remains to notice the third Dante is among the very few, who have head, under which our author has created the national poetry of their counclassed the improvement of society dur- try. For notwithstanding the polished ing the four last centuries of the Mid-elegance of some earlier Italian verse, it dle Ages,-that of literature. He considers the four following causes to have been chiefly instrumental in promoting that improvement, viz. 1. The Study of Civil Law; 2. The institution of Universities; 3. The cultivation of Modern Languages; and 4. The Revival and Restoration of classical, that is to say of Greek and Latin learning, and the invention of printing. Although Mr. Hallam professes to give nothing more than a sketch of these interesting subjects, it is such a sketch as will amply supply the want of more extensive researches, to those who may not be able to command the means or the opportunity of making them. We have been particularly pleased with his accounts of Dante and Petrarch, whose writings contributed so much to improve the poetry of Italy. VOL. VIII. No. 51. Lit. Pan, N. S. Dec. 1. had been confined to amorous sentiment; and it was yet to be seen, that the language could sustain, for a greater length than any existing poem except the Iliad, the varied style of narration, reasoning and ornament. Of all writers, he is the most unquestionably original. Virgil was indeed his inspiring genius, as he declares himself, and as may sometimes be perceived in his diction; but his tone is so peculiar and characteristic, that few realedge any resemblance. He possessed, in ders would be willing at first to acknowan extraordinary degree, a command of language, the abuse of which led to his obscurity and licentious innovations. No poet ever excelled him in conciseness, and in the rare talent of finishing his pictures by a few bold touches; the merit of Pindar in his better hours. How prolix would the stories of Francesca or of Ugolino have become, in the hands of Ariosto, or of Tasso, or of Ovid, or of Spenser ! This excellence indeed is most striking in the 3 E first part of his poem. Having formed his | poet, but as a master of moral wisdom, plan so as to give an equal length to the three regions of his spiritual world, he found himself unable to vary the images of hope or beatitude, and the Paradise is a continual accumulation of descriptions, separately beautiful, but uniform and tedious. Though images derived from light and music are 'he most pleasing, and can be borne longer in poetry than any others, their sweetness palls upon the sense by frequent repetition, and we require the intermixture of sharper flavours. Yet there are detached passages of great excellence in this third part of Dante's poem; and even in the long theological discussions which occupy the greater proportion of its thirty-three cantos, it is impossible not to admire the enunciation of abstract positions with remarkable energy, conciseness, and sometimes perspicuity. The twelve first cantos of the Purgatory are an almost continual flow of soft and brilliant poetry. The seven last are also very splendid, but there is some heaviness in the intermediate parts. Fame has justly given the preference to the Inferno, which displays throughout a more vigorous and masterly conception; but the mind of Dante cannot be thoroughly appreciated without a perusal of his entire poem. The most forced and unnatural turns, the most barbarous licences of idiom, are found in this poet, whose power of expres sion is, at other times, so peculiarly happy. His style is indeed generally free from those conceits of thought, which discredited the other poets of his country; but no sense is too remote for a word, which he finds con. venient for his measure or his rhyme. It seems indeed as if he never altered a line on account of the necessity of rhyme, but forced another or perhaps a third into company with it. For many of his faults no sufficient excuse can be made. But it is candid to remember, that Dante, writing almost in the infancy of a language, which he contributed to create, was not to anticipate that words, which he borrowed from the Latin, and from the provincial dialects, would by accident, or through the timidity of later writers, lose their place in the classical idiom of Italy. If Petrarch, Bembo, and a few more, had not aimed rather at purity than copiousness, the phrases which now appear barbarous, and are at least obsolete, might have been fixed by use in poetical language. The great characteristic excellence of Dante is elevation of sentiment, to which his compressed diction and the emphatic cadences of his measure admirably correspond. We read him, not as an amusing with reverence and awe. Fresh from the deep and serious, though somewhat barren studies of philosophy, and schooled in the severe discipline of experience, he has made of his poem a mirror of his mind and life, the register of his solicitudes and sorrows, and of the speculations in which he sought to escape their recollection. The banished magistrate of Florence, the dis. ciple of Brunetto Latini, the statesman, accustomed to trace the varying fluctuations of Italian faction, is for ever before our eyes. For this reason, even the prodigal display of erudition. which in an epic poem would be entirely misplaced, increases the respect we feel for the poet, though it does not tend to the reader's gratification. Except Milton, he is much the most learned of all the great poets. and, relatively to his age, far more learned than Milton. In one so highly endowed by nature, and so consummate by instruction, we may well sympathize with a resentment which exile and poverty rendered perpetually fresh. The beart of Dante was naturally sensible, and even tender; his poetry is full of simple comparisons from rural life; and the sincerity of his early passion for Beatrice pierces through the veil of allegory which surrounds her. But the memory of his injuries pursues him into the immensity of eternal light; and, in the company of saints and angels, his unforgiving spirit darkens at the name of Florence. We shall conclude our extracts with Mr. Hallam's account of the writings of Petrarch. In the same year (1302) that Dante was expelled from Florence, a notary, by name Petracco, was involved in a similar banishment. Retired to Arezzo, he there became the father of Francis Petrarch. This great man shared of course during his early years in the adverse fortune of his family, which he was invincibly reluctant to restore, according to his father's wish, by the profession of jurisprudence. The strong bias of nature determined him to polite letters and poetry. These are seldom the fountains of wealth; yet they would perhaps have been such to Petrarch, if his temper could have borne the sacrifice of liberty for any worldly acquisitions. At the city of Avignon, where his parents had latterly resided, his graceful appearance and the reputation of his talents attracted one of the Colonna family, then bishop of Lombes in Gascony. In him, and in other members of that great house, never so illustrious as in the fourteenth cen tury, he experienced the union of patron- | patriotism, of religion, he gave the rein to age and friendship. This, however, was all their impulses; and there is not perhaps not confined to the Colonnas. Unlike a page in his Italian writings which does Dante, no poet was ever so liberally and not bear the trace of one or other of these sincerely encouraged by the great; nor did affections. By far the most predominant, any, perhaps, ever carry to that perilous and that which has given the greatest ceintercourse a spirit more irritably indepen-lebrity to his name, is his passion for Laura. dent, or more free from interested adulation. Twenty years of unrequited and almost He praised his friends lavishly, because he unaspiring love were lightened by song; loved them ardently; but his temper was and the attachment, which, having long easily susceptible of offence, and there survived the beauty of its object, seems to must have been much to tolerate in that have at one time nearly passed from the restlessness and jealousy of reputation, heart to the fancy, was changed to an which is perhaps the inevitable failing of a intenser feeling, and to a sort of celestial poet. But every thing was forgiven to a adoration, by her death. Laura, before man, who was the ackowledged boast of the time of Petrarch's first accidental his age and country. Clement VI. con- meeting with her, was united in marriage ferred one or two sinecure benefices upon with another; a fact, which, besides some Petrarch, and would probably have raised more particular evidence, appears to me him to a bishopric, if he had chosen to deducible from the whole tenor of his adopt the ecclesiastical profession. But he poetry. Such a passion is undoubtedly never took orders, the clerical tonsure be- not capable of a moral defence; nor would ing sufficient qualification for holding caI seek its palliation so much in the prevanonries. The same pope even offered him lent manners of his age, by which howthe post of apostolic secratray, and this ever the conduct even of good men is gewas repeated by Innocent VI. I know nerally not a little influenced, as in the not whether we should ascribe to magna- infirmity of Petrarch's character, which nimity, or to a politic motive, the be-induced him both to obey and to justify haviour of Clement VI. towards Petrarch, who had pursued a course as vexatious as possible to the Holy See. For not only he made the residence of the supreme pontiffs at Avignon, and the vices of their court, the topic of invectives, too well founded to be despised, but he had ostentatiously put himself forward as the supporter of Ni. The general excellencies of Petrarch are cola di Rienzi in a project which could his command over the music of his native evidently have no other aim than to wrest language, his correctness of style, scarcely the city of Rome from the temporal sovetwo or three words that he has used havreignty of its bishop. Nor was the friend- ing been rejected by later writers, his exship and society of Petrarch less courted quisite elegance of diction, improved by by the most respectable Italian princes; the perpetual study of Virgil; but, far by Robert King of Naples, by Visconti, above all, that tone of pure and melanthe Correggi of Parma, the famous doge choly sentiment, which has something in of Venice, Andrew Dandolo, and the Car-it unearthly, and forms a striking contrast rara family of Padua, under whose pro-to the amatory poems of antiquity. Most tection he spent the latter years of his life. of these are either licentious or uninterestStories are related of the respect shewn ing; and those of Catullus, a man ento him by men in humbler stations which dowed by nature with deep and serious are perhaps still more satisfactory. But sensibility, and a poet, in my opinion, of the most conspicuous testimony of public greater and more varied genius than Peesteem was bestowed by the city of Rome, trarch, are contaminated, above all the in his solemn coronation, as laureat poet, rest, with the most degrading grossness. in the Capitol. This ceremony took place Of this there is not a single instance in the in 1341; and it is remarkable, that Pe- poet of Vaucluse; and his strains, diffused 15trarch had at that time composed no works, and admired as they have been, may have which could, in our estimation, give him conferred a benefit that criticism cannot pretensions to so singular an honour. estimate, in giving elevation and refinement to the imaginations of youth. The great defect of Petrarch was his want of strong original conception, which prevented him from throwing off the affected and over-strained manner of the Proven The moral character of Petrarch was formed of dispositions, peculiarly calculated for a poet. An enthusiast in the emotions of love, of friendship, of gaiety, of the emotions of his heart. The lady too, whose virtue and prudence we are not to question, seems to have tempered the light and shadow of her countenance so as to preserve her admirer from despair, and consequently to prolong his sufferings and servitude. |